Remember, if the London police preface a stop with "What's all this then?", they can legally search your belongings. And anyone running around taking pictures of chicken restaurants -- well, that's just not normal; it's best to err on the side of public safety.

"...and KFC-ish logos, all carefully titrated to be just far enough from the KFC version to keep the Colonel's savage attack-lawyers at bay."

I think that's a bit of a stretch. Except for the "Tennessee Fried Chicken" one, which is an exact duplicate of the KFC font (and almost the name!), the only things any of the other logos shown have in common with any KFC logo past or present are that they use the color red, and the product they are advertising is fried chicken. And I guess one has red and white stripes, but if that's the case, Waldo, candy canes and circus tents are all ripping off the Colonel.

There's a broad, ill-defined spectrum between plagiarism and homage, between being x-ish and "ripping off". Nobody's fooled by these logos, but we're not meant to be: the logos are saying that the shop sells fried chicken of a vaguely KFC-ish nature, which is what we're looking for on a Friday night, and the logos do that by being vaguely KFC-ish themselves.

It's not a question of 'ripping off', except perhaps in the sullen way those who employ an attack-lawyer resent anyone doing anything that resembles what they do, just because they've decided that they 'own' the idea of fried chicken on the High Street, say.

These logos are KFC-ish more than they are Nando-ish, more than they would be, say, Forest-of-Dean Traditional Microwaved Chicken-ish, and much more than they are Father Christmas-ish. That's all that's meant by being KFC-ish; nobody except attack-lawyers cares about the degree of resemblance.

"… there's a difference between imitation and emulation. Let me tell you the difference. OK? If you imitate someone, you owe them a royalty check. If you emulate them, you don't. There's a big difference. Check your lawyer."